The present invention relates to an arrangement in an overhead conveyor.
SE-8802626-5 discloses a chain conveyor made up of a chain part, a guide part and load carriers, the chain part being formed of a plurality of spherical balls arranged in a row and interconnected by means of a wire. The guide part is formed of a U section, slide elements being arranged in the U section and on the top of the U legs and permitting low-friction sliding of the balls in the guide part. Load carriers engage between the balls. In a variant there are load carriers in the form of plates which are engageable by snap action in holes formed in the balls.
A drawback of the above chain conveyor when conveying suspended loads is that in the variant where the load carrier engages between the balls, the space occupied by the balls cannot be used for load carrying, and in the variant where the load carrier is formed of a plate, a suspended load cannot be carried. A further drawback of the first variant is that torque to which the load carrier is subjected owing to e.g. unsymmetrical load or when moving along curves of the U guide part causes jamming of the load carrier in the U guide part, high friction between the balls and the slide elements and, thus, a disturbed, transport function.
The object of the invention thus is to obviate the above drawbacks of overhead conveyors of the type described above.